Realtors avoid the issue of fees

The Toronto Real Estate Board is having a hard time in the press after hosting a campaign event for Doug Ford to allow him to promote his planned cut to the city’s land transfer tax to 15 per cent.

It’s not the event itself that’s being criticised though, but reaction to questioning about realtors’ fees. When a TV reporter made a point about the fees being more than the transfer taxes he was reportedly told by two TREB executives that the topic was not open for debate.

Recent figures from StatsCan suggest that realtors are making 13 per cent more this year than last, and based on average house prices in Toronto in September a realtor will be pulling in around $28,000 on a sale. That’s roughly twice the cost of taxes.

The comparison is not entirely fair though; people generally have more of an issue with government taxes than they do with commercial fees and of course the realtors’ fees are not profit, with many costs to consider.

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